President William Howard Taft writes to Kansas Governor Stubbs about the planned national good roads convention in Topeka. Although the President thinks the good roads question is "chiefly a state function," he adds that, "The truth is, I think, that the good roads have much to do with the use of waterways and also with the question of railway transportation, because the difficulties of getting to waterways and railways are the great burdens that the farmers have to bear."

"Next to education, the system of good roads is the greatest civilizer."President William Howard Taft
November 16, 1909

1948

Commissioner Thomas MacDonald presents the second David Beecroft Memorial Lecture at a meeting of the Society of Automotive Engineers in Washington, DC. His subject is "Driver Behavior--Key to Safe Highway Design." He says, "For too long, and in too great degree, highway design has been distorted by the tyranny of wrong concepts. Most important of these in its adverse impacts is the error of thinking of the motor vehicle as static in relation to the highway. In use, the vehicle is dynamic and takes on very different qualities."

1974

Due to recent congressional limitations on FHWA travel funds, an FHWA Family Dinner at the Sheraton-Cadillac Hotel in Detroit, site of AASHTO's Annual Meeting, is canceled.